Showing papers by "Stevens Institute of Technology published in 2000"
TL;DR: The strategic alignment maturity assessment is introduced, based on the authors research and consulting experience, that identified the major enablers and inhibitors in the achievement of business-IT alignment and the methodology that leverages the most important enabler and inhibitors.
Abstract: Business and IT practitioners, researchers, and consultants have been asking for an effective tool to assess IT-business alignment. Until now, none was available. This chapter introduces the strategic alignment maturity assessment. This assessment tool is based on the authors research and consulting experience that identified the major enablers and inhibitors in the achievement of business-IT alignment and the methodology that leverages the most important enablers and inhibitors. Alignment focuses on the activities that management performs to achieve cohesive goals across the IT (information technology) and other functional (e.g., finance, marketing, H/R, manufacturing) organizations. Therefore, alignment addresses both how IT is in harmony with the business, and how the business should/could be in harmony with IT. Alignment evolves to a relationship where IT and business adapt their strategies together. Achieving alignment is evolutionary and dynamic. IT requires strong support from senior management, good working relationships, strong leadership, appropriate prioritization, trust, and effective communication, as well as a thorough understanding of the business and technical environments. Achieving and sustaining alignment demands focusing on maximizing the enablers and minimizing the inhibitors. The purpose of this chapter is to discuss an approach for assessing the maturity of the business-IT alignment. Once the maturity is understood, an organization can identify opportunities for enhancing the harmonious relationship of business and IT. INTRODUCTION Decades have passed. Billions of dollars have been invested on information technology (IT). Today, every organization is in the information business. Alignment applying IT in an appropriate and timely way, in harmony with business strategies, goals and needs remains a key concern of business executives. This This chapter appears in the book, Strategic Information Technology: Opportunities for Competitive Advantage by Raymond Papp. Copyright © 2001, Idea Group Publishing. 701 E. Chocolate Avenue, Hershey PA 17033-1117, USA Tel: 717/533-8845; Fax 717/533-8661; URL-http://www.idea-group.com ITB7957 IDEA GROUP PUBLISHING
996 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the effects of silicate, sulfate, and carbonate on the removal of arsenite [As(III)] and arsenate [As (V)] by coprecipitation with ferric chloride were studied.
575 citations
TL;DR: A review of the issues associated with the generation of large-volume, high-pressure, nonequilibrium plasmas, as well as the approaches that have been developed for generating these materials using electrical discharges in gases is presented in this article.
Abstract: A review is presented of the issues associated with the generation of large-volume, high-pressure, nonequilibrium plasmas, as well as the approaches that have been developed for generating these plasmas using electrical discharges in gases. The various instabilities that have been overcome to obtained these plasmas as well as the techniques for quenching them are also reviewed. Last, recent efforts to obtain atmospheric pressure plasmas are discussed with particular emphasis on the capillary plasma electrode discharge, which we have used to obtain high (electron) density nonequilibrium plasmas.
507 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors proposed a nonlinear wave modulation spectroscopy (NWMS) method for detecting structural damage in materials, which focuses on the application of harmonics and sum and difference frequency to detect structural damage.
Abstract: The level of nonlinearity in the elastic response of materials containing structural damage is far greater than in materials with no structural damage. This is the basis for nonlinear wave diagnostics of damage, methods which are remarkably sensitive to the detection and progression of damage in materials. Nonlinear wave modulation spectroscopy (NWMS) is one exemplary method in this class of dynamic nondestructive evaluation techniques. The method focuses on the application of harmonics and sum and difference frequency to discern damage in materials. It consists of exciting a sample with continuous waves of two separate frequencies simultaneously, and inspecting the harmonics of the two waves, and their sum and difference frequencies (sidebands). Undamaged materials are essentially linear in their response to the two waves, while the same material, when damaged, becomes highly nonlinear, manifested by harmonics and sideband generation. We illustrate the method by experiments on uncracked and crac...
491 citations
TL;DR: A recent review as discussed by the authors describes recent progress in the development of more rigorous approaches for the calculation of absolute electron-impact molecular ionization cross sections, particularly in applications where a larger number of cross section data were needed with reasonable precision.
264 citations
TL;DR: A novel viewpoint to the collision resolution problem is introduced for wireless slotted random access networks based on signal separation principles borrowed from signal processing problems, and the protocol's parameters are optimized to maximize the system throughput.
Abstract: A novel viewpoint to the collision resolution problem is introduced for wireless slotted random access networks. This viewpoint is based on signal separation principles borrowed from signal processing problems. The received collided packets are not discarded in this approach but are exploited to extract each individual user packet information. In particular, if k users collide in a given time slot, they repeat their transmission for a total of k times so that k copies of the collided packets are received. Then, the receiver has to resolve a k/spl times/k source mixing problem and separate each individual user. The proposed method does not introduce throughput penalties since it requires only k slots to transmit k colliding packets. Performance issues that are related to the implementation of the collision detection algorithm are studied. The protocol's parameters are optimized to maximize the system throughput.
252 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore the critical practices impacting a new product team's ability to learn and succeed, and investigate the practices of 281 new product teams from around the world.
Abstract: This paper explores the critical practices impacting a new product team's ability to learn and succeed. By investigating the practices of 281 new product teams from around the world, several factors emerged that impact a team's ability to acquire and use knowledge to reduce cycle time and improve their probability of success. The significant factors include: (1) documentation of project information, (2) storage and retrieval systems for project information, (3) information reviewing practices, (4) vision clarity, (5) vision stability, and (6) management support of the project.
229 citations
TL;DR: The concept of a p-efficient point of a probability distribution is used to derive various equivalent problem formulations and the concept of r-concave discrete probability distributions is introduced.
Abstract: We consider stochastic programming problems with probabilistic constraints involving integer-valued random variables. The concept of a p-efficient point of a probability distribution is used to derive various equivalent problem formulations. Next we introduce the concept of r-concave discrete probability distributions and analyse its relevance for problems under consideration. These notions are used to derive lower and upper bounds for the optimal value of probabilistically constrained stochastic programming problems with discrete random variables. The results are illustrated with numerical examples.
219 citations
TL;DR: Apoptosis results in surface accessibility of all SSA/Ro-SSB/La Ags for recognition by circulating maternal Abs and it is speculated that in vivo such opsonized apoptotic cardiocytes promote an inflammatory response by resident macrophages with damage to surrounding conducting tissue.
Abstract: Despite the near universal association of congenital heart block and maternal Abs to SSA/Ro and SSB/La, the intracellular location of these Ags has made it difficult to substantiate their involvement in pathogenicity. To define whether components of the SSA/Ro-SSB/La complex, which translocate during apoptosis, are indeed accessible to extracellular Abs, two approaches were taken: immunoprecipitation of surface biotinylated proteins and scanning electron microscopy. Human fetal cardiocytes from 16-24-wk abortuses were cultured and incubated with staurosporine to induce apoptosis. Surface biotinylated 48-kDa SSB/La was reproducibly immunoprecipitated from apoptotic, but not nonapoptotic cardiocytes. Surface expression of SSA/Ro and SSB/La was further substantiated by scanning electron microscopy. Gold particles (following incubation with gold-labeled sera containing various specificities of anti-SSA/Ro-SSB/La Abs and murine mAb to SSB/La and 60-kDa SSA/Ro) were consistently observed on early and late apoptotic cardiocytes. No particles were seen after incubation with control antisera. To evaluate whether opsonized apoptotic cardiocytes promote inflammation, cells were cocultured with macrophages. Compared with nonapoptotic cardiocytes or apoptotic cardiocytes incubated with normal sera, apoptotic cardiocytes preincubated with affinity-purified Abs to SSB/La, 52-kDa SSA/Ro, or 60-kDa SSA/Ro increased the secretion of TNF-alpha from cocultured macrophages. In summary, apoptosis results in surface accessibility of all SSA/Ro-SSB/La Ags for recognition by circulating maternal Abs. It is speculated that in vivo such opsonized apoptotic cardiocytes promote an inflammatory response by resident macrophages with damage to surrounding conducting tissue.
176 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the linear dynamics of a class of translating media with an arbitrarily varying length is investigated and the tension in the media arising from their longitudinal accelerations is incorporated, and the dynamic stability of the continuous media relative to the inertial and moving coordinate systems is studied from the energy standpoint.
Abstract: The linear dynamics of a class of translating media with an arbitrarily varying length is investigated. The tension in the media arising from their longitudinal accelerations is incorporated. The dynamic stability of the continuous media relative to the inertial and moving coordinate systems is studied from the energy standpoint. The exact expressions for the rates of change of energies of media are derived and interpreted from both control volume and system viewpoints. The stability analyses relative to the inertial and moving coordinate systems result in the same predictions. Examples including a robotic arm through a prismatic joint and an elevator cable in a high-rise building illustrate the analysis. In particular, the results explain an inherent unstable shortening cable behavior encountered in elevator industry.
162 citations
TL;DR: In the coming years, technological advances, such as wireless networking, will undoubtedly help make e-learning more attractive and as high-speed, broadband Internet connections become the norm, more real-time, interactive uses of the Web will appear in online-learning classes.
Abstract: Learning online is one of the strongest currents in higher education, as the working engineer in particular is discovering. This paper details how, in the coming years, technological advances, such as wireless networking, will undoubtedly help make e-learning more attractive. And as high-speed, broadband Internet connections become the norm, more real-time, interactive uses of the Web will appear in online-learning classes.
TL;DR: In this article, the formation, appearance and properties of wear debris in ceramics and their influence on the wear of these materials are surveyed, in contrast to metals, do not form hard and cohesive mechanically alloyed surface layers.
TL;DR: In this paper, the effect of the contract type on the success of defense projects is investigated, with the level of technological uncertainty existing at the beginning of the project, and the results show that the effect depends on the type of contract type.
Abstract: This study attempts to reveal the effect of the contract type on the success of defense projects contingent with the level of technological uncertainty existing at the beginning of the project. Bas...
TL;DR: In this article, the use of hyperbranched polymer (HBP) as a processing aid for linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) in the tubular film blowing process was investigated.
TL;DR: This work presents (9/4-e)-tough graphs without a Hamilton path for arbitrary >0, thereby refuting a well-known conjecture due to Chvatal.
TL;DR: In CDMA systems with long codes, the users' signatures change in each bit period, impeding the estimation of the time-invariant multipath parameters, so correlation-matching methods are employed to blindly estimate those multipATH parameters.
Abstract: In CDMA systems with long codes, the users' signatures change in each bit period, impeding the estimation of the time-invariant multipath parameters. In this paper, correlation-matching methods are employed to blindly estimate those multipath parameters. For given code sequences, the output correlation matrix (parameterized by the unknown channel coefficients) is compared with its instantaneous approximation. By minimizing the Frobenius norm of the resulting error matrix, the channel parameters can be estimated up to a complex scalar ambiguity. Both batch and adaptive algorithms are derived. Under the assumption of i.i.d. code sequences, identifiability up to a complex scalar ambiguity for each channel is guaranteed, and the asymptotic convergence of the proposed algorithm is established. Furthermore, step-size selection for the adaptive version is investigated. When only the code sequence of the user of interest is available, a single user receiver is also derived. Simulation results verify those claims and provide comparisons with other methods.
TL;DR: In this paper, the general control laws for pointwise controllers to dissipate vibratory energies of translating beams and strings with arbitrarily varying length are presented, and sufficient conditions for uniform stability and uniform exponential stability of controlled systems are established via Lyapunov stability criteria.
Abstract: The general control laws for pointwise controllers to dissipate vibratory energies of translating beams and strings with arbitrarily varying length are presented. Special domain and boundary control laws that can be easily implemented result as a special case. Sufficient conditions for uniform stability and uniform exponential stability of controlled systems are established via Lyapunov stability criteria. Numerical simulations demonstrate the effectiveness of the active controllers in stabilizing translating media during both extension and retraction. Optimal gains leading to the fastest rates of decay of vibratory energies of controlled systems are identified. It is shown that under the optimal control gains, translating media can be completely stabilized during extension and retraction.
TL;DR: A Markov-like weighted least squares (WLS) estimator is presented herefor harmonic sinusoidal parameter estimation and involves two distinct steps whereby it first obtains a set of in WLS.
10 Jul 2000
TL;DR: This work addresses the problem of estimating the fading channel's correlation matrices from the received data by exploiting the distributed training symbols and proposes methods to track the time-varying channel taps based on the estimated AR model.
Abstract: Frequency-selective fading channels are typically modeled either as a combination of Doppler components or as lowpass stochastic processes. In both cases, accurate parameter and/or Doppler frequency estimation is impeded by the fact that the Doppler frequencies are typically very low (compared with the data rate) and closely spaced. This problem is mitigated in pilot symbol assisted modulation (PSAM) systems that employ distributed training. Those systems can provide information about a time-undersampled version of the channel that may be easier to identify. We address the problem of estimating the fading channel's correlation matrices from the received data by exploiting the distributed training symbols. Multichannel autoregressive (AR) models are estimated to fit the channel's variations, and the Doppler frequencies are identified through the peaks of the AR spectrum. The performance of the proposed methods is studied through analytical and experimental results. Finally, Kalman filtering ideas are employed to track the time-varying channel taps based on the estimated AR model.
01 Apr 2000
TL;DR: The main objective in the present paper is to improve the efficiency of Paxson's method for synthesizing self-similar network traffic by demonstrating that a linear approximation can be used to determine the power spectrum of the FGN.
Abstract: The present paper focuses on self-similar network traffic generation. Network traffic modeling studies the generation of synthetic sequences. The generated sequences must have similar features to the measured traffic. Exact methods for generating self-similar sequences are not appropriate for long traces. Our main objective in the present paper is to improve the efficiency of Paxson's method for synthesizing self-similar network traffic. Paxson's method uses a fast, approximate synthesis for the power spectrum of the FGN and uses the inverse Fourier transform to obtain the time-domain sequences. We demonstrate that a linear approximation can be used to determine the power spectrum of the FGN. This linear approximation reduces the complexity of the computation without compromising the accuracy in synthesizing the power spectrum of the FGN. Our results show that long traces can be generated in much less time. To compare our method with existing ones, we will measure the running time in generating long and short sample paths from the FGN. We will also conduct experiments to show that our method can generate self-similar traffic for specified Hurst parameters with high accuracy.
TL;DR: In this paper, a new approach applies metrics in several critical areas to measure and improve the performance of new product development efforts, which can play an important role in helping companies to enhance their new product discovery efforts.
Abstract: Metrics can play an important role in helping companies to enhance their new product development efforts. A new approach applies metrics in several critical areas to measure and improve the perform...
TL;DR: In this article, enanti-specific approaches and microwave assisted chemical reactions have been used for the preparation of 3-hydroxy-2-azetidinones and their conversion to natural or non-natural enantiomeric forms of intermediates for gentosamine, 6-epi-lincosamine and polyoxamic acid.
Patent•
15 Dec 2000TL;DR: In this paper, a plasma reactor (100) including a first dielectric (115) having at least one capillary (146) defined therethrough, and a segmented electrode (140), including a plurality of electrode segments (140) is disposed proximate an associated capillary.
Abstract: A plasma reactor (100) including a first dielectric (115) having at least one capillary (146) defined therethrough, and a segmented electrode (140) including a plurality of electrode segments (140), each electrode segment (140) is disposed proximate an associated capillary (146). The reactor (100) may include a second electrode (120) and dielectric with the first and second dielectrics (115) separated by a predetermined distance to form a channel (125) therebetween into which the plasma exiting from the capillaries (146) in the first dielectric (115) is discharged. The fluid to be treated is passed through the channel (125) and exposed to the plasma discharge. The fluid to be treated may be exposed to the plasma discharge both in the capillaries (146) as well as in the channel (125) between the two dielectrics (115). The plasma reactor (100) has a wide range of application, such as the destruction of pollutants in a fluid, the generation of ozone, the pretreatment of air for modifying or improving combustion, and the destruction of various organic compounds, and surface cleaning of objects.
TL;DR: A predicate-transformer semantics for an object oriented language that includes specification constructs from refinement calculi is defined, and notions of refinement are formulated.
Abstract: We define a predicate-transformer semantics for an object oriented language that includes specification constructs from refinement calculi. The language includes recursive classes, visibility control, dynamic binding, and recursive methods. Using the semantics, we formulate notions of refinement. Such results are a first step toward a refinement calculus.
TL;DR: In this paper, a method and apparatus which employs phase or amplitude modulated electromagnetic probing waves (20 ) (in optical or microwave frequency ranges or both) emitted toward a vibrating object was provided.
Abstract: A method and apparatus ( 10 ) is provided which employs phase or amplitude modulated electromagnetic probing waves ( 20 ) (in optical or microwave frequency ranges or both) emitted toward a vibrating object ( 8 ). The optical and/or microwave probing signals ( 20 ) remotely irradiate an object ( 8 ) of interest. The object ( 8 ) reflects and/or scatters the probing wave ( 20 ) toward a receiver ( 22 ). The reflected/scattered modulated signal ( 24 ) is received with a remote sensor (receiver) ( 22 ). Vibration causes additional phase modulation to the probing wave ( 20 ). At the receiving end, the signal is demodulated to extract and analyze the vibration waveform ( 26,28 ). The present invention can be utilized for nondestructive testing, monitoring of technological processes, structural integrity, noise and vibration control, mine detection, etc.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present and comment on several methods for designing optimal HPLC separations at the analytical stage, which typically utilize an efficient design of experiments and response surface optimization techniques.
Abstract: Selecting optimum HPLC operating conditions during the development of new analytical separations is difficult due to the high degree of process variable interaction and the lack of robust process models. Traditionally, the methods development strategy in analytical applications involves a trial-and-error grid search method that is both inefficient and costly. Several researchers have investigated more practical and efficient methods for designing optimal HPLC separations at the analytical stage. These strategies typically utilize an efficient design of experiments and response surface optimization techniques. Response or criteria functions are employed to numerically quantify chromatograms and rank them in order of desirability. A crucial step in the optimization problem is the selection of a proper response function. Several such response functions exist and the choice of a proper function is dependent on the overall goal of the separation at hand. The intent of this review is to present and comment on t...
TL;DR: The field of bio-analytical mass spectrometers has seen rapid growth in recent years as mentioned in this paper, which has been made possible in part by recent advances in bioanalytical methods, in particular biological Mass Spectrometry.
TL;DR: In this article, an ultra-stiff nanoprecision linear piezomotor was designed for grinding applications, which consists of three highvoltage piezoelectric actuators integrated by a monolithic flexure frame.
Abstract: An ultra-stiff nanoprecision linear piezomotor was recently designed for grinding application. This piezomotor consists of three high-voltage piezoelectric actuators integrated by a monolithic flexure frame. This monolithic frame was designed to have multiple functions such as protecting and pre-loading three piezoelectric actuators and withstanding all the shearing forces during operation. The monolithic frame as a motion mechanism eliminates the backlash problem. The stiffness distributions in certain directions over the frame were designed using the finite-element method.
TL;DR: The influence of 200 keV electrons on the characteristic 7eV π −π∗ peak in polystyrene was investigated using electron energy-loss spectroscopy (EELS) in a scanning transmission electron microscope.
Abstract: The influence of 200 keV electrons on the characteristic 7eV π—π∗ peak in polystyrene was investigated using electron energy-loss spectroscopy (EELS) in a scanning transmission electron microscope....